Long-time Ohio elected official Jim Petro retires

Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor Jim Petro has retired after more than three decades in public service, including two years as chancellor.

Petro retired Friday as leader of one of the largest higher education networks in the country. Gov. John Kasich appointed Petro in March 2011.

The Republican from the Cleveland suburb of Brooklyn served as a councilman, commissioner and state representative from Cuyahoga County before being elected Ohio auditor in 1994. He served two terms as auditor before being elected attorney general in 2002 and ran for governor in 2006, losing the GOP primary to Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.

In 2005, Petro was the first state attorney general in the nation to intervene to use DNA evidence on behalf of a wrongly convicted inmate.

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